Wow, so Kier Starmer is also to blame for rape convictions falling now as well?
Cut and thrust, cut and thrust, level upā¦ repeat ad infinitum
Not quite a Geoffrey Howe moment, but it does look like things are coming to a head now as the PM has no senior support now by the looks of it.
Sinking rats ship leaving
It appears the plan might be to āaccept the resignationsā of all the staff that failed, i.e. attended the various parties.
Yes, this might be Operation save big dog, bringing in the new staff he promised at the start of the week, but it just feels disorganised and I canāt see who would organise that now. Even his claim he was bringing Lynton Crosby back (lol) has been confirmed this evening as a lie.
This is almost as much fun as watching Utd lose.
Only partly.
Councils have two revenue streams - their revenue budget i.e. council tax and other self generated monies, and their capital budget. The capital budget is often larger and I believe it comes from Westminster, EU grants (darn it) and other contributions and awards of that ilk.
Council responsibilities are vast and the only real way they can shed cost is by reducing staff numbers. This is a double edged sword as this pushes more work on them to outsource work to the private sector, even just to meet their extensive legal obligations. That then requires costly tender processes, and of course overhead and profit costs being paid by to the selected contractor. Iām not convinced itās cost effective across the board.
This is why Iām very wary of privatisation and really worried about this set up being pushed onto the NHS.
Unfortunately there will always be situations where people are at the sharp end, and Iām sorry to hear that.
Not true. Gazprom is fulfilling all current contractsā¦ They wanted long-term fixed price contracts to guarantee constant demand, the EU distros said they would rather buy at spot market prices - whoops! It wouldnāt surprise me if something similar is happening in the UK considering half of production is local. Just another reason for nationalising the sector and running it as a public utility at cost plus.
Thatās before we get into the financial speculation side of it, considering they are well aware thereās many a patsy in the marketā¦ Or continual US obstruction in the Nordstream II pipeline.
I donāt think the Russians are quite as naive and innocent as all that, but in a fundamental sense you are right - declining volumes from other producers (NL since 2018, Norway right now) plus very high demand is really what is driving this. Gazprom has curtailed deliveries, but on a schedule that was know 3 years ago and that maintains all contracted levels. This was a clear problem 4 years ago that kept trending the wrong way.
In September, the struggles of the small UK energy distributors was the canary in the coal mine, and UK policy just kept building up the payoff while reducing the risk for speculation - which is exactly what todayās policy does. It has been one of the clearest commodity plays in the market for over two years, and it just keeps being made more attractive. It is really playing out in a remarkably similar fashion to the California power in 2000-01.
I never accused them of doing otherwise. The situation does affect prices though through greater speculation and on a political level - Russia isnāt going to rush to provide more gas etc.
There was another